


Demons

by TrissMacGyverJohnson



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26010028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrissMacGyverJohnson/pseuds/TrissMacGyverJohnson
Summary: The events take place after 4x09. You and Mac have hard times accepting the death of the man in the nuclear power plant.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)/Reader
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

> _\- Your eyes, they shine so bright, I want to save their light_
> 
> _I can’t escape this now, unless you show me how -_

“Mac, please don’t-”

Detecting your will to prevent Mac from taking that hard choice, Taylor held your arms and pulled you back away. 

“Leave me!” you wagged, with all your strength left.

Heat statistics were finally dropping. “What have you done?” you whispered, the same moment Mac pressed the red button.

No answer. You three just stood there: witnesses of the death of a good man who was just trying to do his job, in order to save the city and his family. Not moving his eyes from the screen until the very end, Mac half turned to you, lowering his gaze right after. Russ lose the hold on you, and you got close to the screens and those deadly buttons. But the “reverse” button wasn’t on that console.

“There had to be another way!” you burst out.

“Y/N, that was the only way-”

“It’s okay, Russ.” Mac stopped your British colleague with a little hint of his hand, then turning to you: “Y/N, if you want to fight me, if you hate me...I won’t blame you.”

Russ newly set it, trying to calm spirits down: “It was him or the city. It’s mathemat-”

You screamed: “Well, fuck math! When guilt of having watched a man dying without moving a finger will strike tonight, it won’t be math that’s going to help me sleep”


	2. Chapter 2

You lay your hand on the shower’s silver knob and turn it on. The warm water jet hits your skin as you close your eyes. 

The feeling of two strong arms rounding your waist, and pulling you in. Back against his chest, you rest your head on Mac’s shoulder. His breath caresses your neck’s skin as he whispers something that makes you smile. He can literally make you smile out of nothing. You look at him through your wet eyelashes, and meet his blue eyes. The same blue eyes stuck on that screen, so still, despite of being filled by tears.

You open your eyes with a gasp. When this job has become so complicated? You remember times of getting home to drink a beer with Mac and your friends around the fire pit. Evenings, holidays, birthdays filled by jokes and laughters. 

You close the water and get out of the shower. With just a towel wrapped around your body shape, you walk around the house, alone, in the darkness. You head for the kitchen, take a bottle of wine and drink a couple of glasses: the ultimate remedy to make you sleep since your thoughts had become more persistent. 

The bruise of the door opening and the light from the street get your attention. Mac leaves his keys on the little dish and walks in the kitchen, sure of you already being sleeping. 

He slightly widens his eyes seeing you standing there.

“Hey, you still awake?” 

Despite of you not having been the best in showing your affection lately, you still want Mac to find a caring person when he gets home. You’re tired of falling asleep alone and waking up to him sleeping on the couch. 

“Guess who couldn’t fall asleep without you by her side?” you speak softly, putting your arms around his neck.

He’s surprised by your reaction, but a genuine half smile shows up anyways.

You go on, joking: “I’ve heard you always coming back late from work these past nights. Has Matty been covering you with work or is it just you and Russ looking for conspiracy theories as usual?”

After a silent moment, he cautiously answers: “Since you seemed to need more space, I offered Matty to finish some extra work.”

“Well, if this means you doing crazy hour at work, I am not okay with it anymore.”

Mac spots a drop of water falling from your hair, and follows with his thumb its path down your neck, collarbone, shoulder. “You’re so beautiful. I don’t deserve you.” he whispers, kissing you where he started.

You breath out of relieve of that much needed contact. He grips the towel on your sides pulling you closer, as you cup his face moving down to the collar of his shirt. His hands run up your back, to stop below your nape, fingers locking in your wet hair. You kiss him fondly for a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss.

Detaching his lips from yours and giving you a corned look, Mac murmurs: “Have you drunk?”

“Just a couple of glasses before you got home” you state, without giving too much weight to that detail.

As you get closer for another kiss, he takes up the subject: “Why?”

“I felt really tense and I thought this could have helped us to relax” you caress his arms, trying to keep a contact with him.

“Wow, I am such a fool. I really thought all of this came naturally. That you needed to be with me again.”

He walks towards his room, letting the distance between you grow.

Not being able to keep the true for yourself any longer, you explode: “It’s just, it’s just I keep seeing that man falling on the ground, dying under our eyes, again and again. The image on that screen is stuck on my mind. But I don’t want this to ruin everything between us.”

“Well, it already happened. You stopped seeing me in the same way after that day. You are barely able to look me in the eyes. I know that you blame me for that death...”

“I’m just scared this job could have changed us. I feel like I can’t move on, not yet, at least.”

Tears fall from your eyes as Mac answers: “You’re right. I’ve changed, and it’s wrong making you to accept what I turned into.”


	3. Chapter 3

“So, how’s your relationship going? Have you managed to fix things with your partner?” 

“Pretty bad.” You answer your therapist’s question “I’ve tried to establish a connection with him, instead of keeping avoiding the problem, as you suggested me, but it didn’t work out very well. I feel like I ruined everything.”

“Why do you talk like this?”

“I had drunk, then we had a moment but he noticed it and thought everything happened just because I wan’t completely sober. But it’s not like that, I really wanted to be close to him as we used to. Then, I told him how I felt since we came back from that mission and he started saying I blame him from all that happened back then...” You massage your temples, closing your eyes and forcing you to breath in and out regularly.

“Y/N, it has been awhile now, and I’ve read all the files about your past missions multiple times...Could it be you can’t get over what your partner was obliged to do, because you still can’t forgive yourself for that one time you had to take the same decision by yourself?”

One tear fall from your eyes: “I had promised to myself that I would have never let that happen again...”

Before you can add other words, Matty breaks in the room: “Y/N, I’m sorry to interrupt your session, but we need you on the field, now...”

“O-okay” You discreetly wipe your tear and get up, nodding to your therapist and to your boss.

“They’ll explain you as you go. Now please take this and leave it in the war room.” Matty handles you a file and disappears in an office of the Phoenix’s base.

Once in the war room, you lay it on the small table and look for your bag to put away files from your past missions and your therapist’s report about the sessions. You’ll consign them to Matty after the mission. 

“Y/N, we need to go” Mac enters in the room.

“Yes, I just need to arrange some things” 

“Please, just do it later” he prompts you.

“Okay, but remember me to pick up these things before going home” you reply, leaving all the dossiers on the table and following him out.

* * *

Despite of the tiredness due to the long day and mission, you keep replaying the words of your therapist and the memories that they made surface on your mind, on a loop.

You get in the hallway and stand in front of Mac’s door. You raise your fist, ready to knock. Once done, you receive no answer. You change your mind multiple times, repetitively approaching the door and stumbling back, until you lower the hold and get in. You look for a sign from Mac, but he seems peacefully asleep on his side. Your gut tells you to go on, so you crawl on the mattress and lie next to him.

Rubbing an hand on his face, Mac asks: “Y/N, what are you doing?”

“Checking you’re okay.” you whisper.

“I am. Good night.” He lets slide an arm under the pillow, and close his eyes.

You caress his hair, then his cheeks, noticing he cried: “I knew something was wrong. But I won’t let you face your demons alone”

“That’s not on you, Y/N. I made my choices and have to take the burden.”

“It was the right choice. I’ve always known it. I guess I wasn’t able to forgive myself for something I did much time ago, and seeing you doing the same was like history repeating without having the power to change things.”

“Y/N, I have to confess you a thing...”

“Of course”

“You left those files in the war room today, and then you forgave to recollect them, so I thought to bring them back home for you...I opened one of them to see if it was work related, and then I read they were about you having suffered from PTSD in the past and resuming therapy...I’m so sorry, that was so not me, but I wanted to know you were okay...”

“Mac, you don’t have to worry about me” you reply.

“So why you didn’t you tell me you were seeing a therapist? I’ve read you talked to her about us. I could have helped you. I could have come with you.”

“Mac, we haven’t talked a lot lately, don’t you think? It would have been unfair to let you know about my problems, seen what you were going through, too...”

“Okay, but why you never talked to me about that mission? The one you had to shoot to that girl?”

“I should have done it, I know. I should have let you know everything about my past, so you could have chosen if staying or leaving. It’s just, when I met you everything changed. It took me so much time to move on, that I wasn’t ready to share this with anybody. Relieve all the guilt, the pain...”

“I wouldn’t have changed my mind on you, even if I knew that.” he reassures you.

“Well, maybe I can tell you now...”

“You don’t have to do it-“

You interrupt him: “I want...Me and the team I worked with at that time were following a group of terrorists. Late teenagers brainwashed since young age, in order to make them enroll and commit crimes. We had been reported they would have attacked civilians on a public event. Once on the place, the situation escalated quickly. They have already hurt some people, my colleagues were able to separate and catch most of them, but it missed a girl. I was able to follow her and noticed she got a very dangerous weapon with her, one able to make way worst damages than what they had already caused to those people. As soon as I got her under fire, I shot to kill. The stakes were too high. I didn’t think about it twice. Just when paramedics brought away her body, I realised. If she only was born elsewhere, or met different people, maybe she would still be alive, she would have had a family... »

« So why do we feel so bad? It’s like I can’t go back to be the person I was, the person you loved. » Mac asks, resigned.

« The person I love is right in front of me. I love you, Mac, and nothing in this world will ever change that. »

« Neither me deciding who lives and who dies? »

“ You would have never done it, if there only had been another way. It would have been less painful for you to sacrifice yourself, rather than pressing that button. And your tears make a clear example of it.”  
  
“Yeah...”

“I wish I would have acted in your place to save you this feeling...” As you cup his face and kiss him, Mac takes you under his arm like you were his last and most important thing left.

“Do you trust me?” you wonder.

“With all my life.” he replies.

“Nothing inside of you has ever changed.”


End file.
